


14 Days

by xDomino009x



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashed, Canonical Character Death, Cheating, Conditioning, Dates, Doctor/Patient, Emotional Manipulation, Established Relationship, Extramarital Affairs, F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Hospital, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Injury, Kidnapping, Light Smut, Love, Mistakes, Murder, Psychological Trauma, Scars, Self-Blame, Talon - Freeform, Terrorism, background Amelie/Gerard, but no one is really here for them right?, missing person, valentines day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-13 01:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 12,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13559715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xDomino009x/pseuds/xDomino009x
Summary: When Amelie is rescued from Talon, she's put into the care of Angela, and while that means their relationship should be strictly professional it's always been hard to say No to Amelie.Especially now she has a job to do.





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, been working on this for a while and it's finally done!
> 
> Hope you enjoy the read, I've not posted anything long for these guys for a while!
> 
> This is gonna be updated every day for 2 weeks so make sure you check back if you enjoy it!

“She’s still asleep Gérard,” Angela whispered, standing in the doorway of the hospital ward. Her patient could just be seen, back to the door, in the bed that filled most of the room. She looked back at her and then shook her head, “I’m not sure seeing her right now is a good idea.” The man in front of her looked like that was the last thing he’d wanted to hear. Gérard glared and drew himself up, balling his hands into fists at his sides. 

Angela would have been intimidated if she hadn’t been dealing with soldiers like him for the last few years. She’d been a field medic since her early 20s, and had been threatened and insulted by men twice his size before now.

When his angered look didn’t work Gérard spat, “She is my wife, Angela. I’m seeing her, get out of my way!” He pushed her roughly into the doorframe, but she kept her hand against the other side. Her arm locked as he tried to walk past. She may be smaller than him, but she was reasonably strong. He stepped back; hurting her wasn’t his intention. Angela stepped out of the room, pulling the door closed softly behind her. 

“Gérard, you cannot go in,” she said, quietly but firmly, “I’m her doctor, I’m sorry but I don’t think she’s fit to see anyone yet.” Asserting her authority seemed to take the soldier aback. He stood, silent and frowning, for a moment. Then looked at her curiously. “You told Jack you found nothing wrong.”

Nodding, Angela took him to one side, standing away from the door. She didn’t need anyone on the other side hearing what she was saying, even if it was written on all the medical reports.“Physically, that’s true,” she began, careful how she proceeded, “But we don’t know what Talon did to her. When I say she’s fit for visitors you can see her.”

Gérard threw up his hands and sighed in frustration. “Fine.” He turned on his heel and called down the corridor to her, “Tell me when I can see my wife.” 

It hurt to keep him away from her.

Angela went back into the room, gesturing to the doorway for her assistant to leave. He did, walking hastily away from the room as Angela closed the door behind him. Then she turned to Amélie, who had rolled onto her other side, now facing her. Honey brown eyes followed her from the doorway to the desk, then to the side of the bed.

“You sent him away?” she asked softly. Her voice was almost a monotone, weak and rough from somewhere in her chest. 

Angela smiled and placed a hand over her shin. Even with the cover’s between them Amélie seemed to recoil from the touch like she’d been burned. The doctor removed her hand quickly and went back to just standing by the bed. “Yes, like you asked.” She checked her clipboard quickly, looking from the words to her patient, and then dropped it onto a metal table at the bedside. “Is everything okay Amélie?” There had to be something wrong if she didn’t want to see her own husband, surely.

Amélie shook her head ever so slightly. It was almost unnoticeable. “I just don’t want him to see me like this.” 

Angela understood.

The french woman wasn’t vain, or shallow. But she had always been told she was beautiful - rosy cheeks, a smile just on the human side of perfect, eyes that sparkled in the sunlight. Now her eyes looked dead, hollow even. She had come back from something not everyone could come back from. And so far she was surviving, coping better than Angela had expected her to. She might have given her too little credit. “I won’t let him in until you want to see him.”

Amélie groaned and covered her eyes with her arms, laying on her back. “I’m an awful wife, aren’t I?” she muttered bitterly. Angela swallowed and looked at the ground before she answered.

“No. Not at all, don’t think that Amélie,” she told her adamantly. She didn’t want Amélie to start believing that she had obligations to Gérard just because they were married. Their relationship made no difference to what she had gone through. “You’ve been through an ordeal, you get to choose how long you need to recover.”

Amélie moved her arms and stared at the ceiling for a while. “I’m not just talking about Talon,” she whispered after a long while.

Another long while before Angela replied. She chewed her lower lip and shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her long white coat. “I know.” She sounded just as bitter as Amélie had. They were silent, not looking at each other while they waited for the other to talk. “I didn’t mean to put you in this situation,” Angela muttered, her voice apologetic.

“But you did Angela, we let this happen,” the brunette sighed, running a hand over her hair And now I need to get out of it.”

“Whatever you need, just tell me,” Angela offered, offering her hands to her patient, her friend, and smiled reassuringly. “You’ll be here for a few more days under observation and then you should be free to go home.” She paused for just a little too long before adding, “To your husband.”

“I’m sorry Angela,” Amélie muttered, reaching out and taking the doctor’s hand weakly. Her voice was growing hoarse with all this talking, and she lay back with her head against the pillows of the bed.

“Don’t be,” Angela replied, running a hand gently over her hair. Her brow was sweaty, and she made a note to fetch a cloth for if she was developing a slight temperature. “I know where we stand.”


	2. Day Two

Angela sighed happily as she opened the curtains to the hospital wards a crack and waited for any kind of reaction from the woman tucked under the covers. When Amélie didn't seem to object to the light filtering into the room through the tinted glass Angela slowly opened the windows. “How are you feeling today Amélie?”

In response to her voice and the daylight Amélie sat up and edged herself back against the pillows at the head of the bed. “Perfectly fine. Still.” She sounded irritated, looked it too when Angela turned around. 

“You’re restless,” she stated, nodding and sitting down on the edge of the bed. She knew the woman would be, she’d been her friend for almost a year now so she liked to think she knew her quite well. “I’m sorry to be keeping you here.”

“Are you?” Amélie asked suddenly. Her whole demeanour seemed to have changed from yesterday. She looked stronger, her eyes were much more alert than they had been previously. It should have been an improvement in health Angela was happy to see, but the question had caught her off guard.

She moved right to the edge of the bed and asked, “Excuse me?” hoping she had misheard.

“Isn't keeping me here better than sending me to Gérard?” Amélie elaborated, looking right into Angela’s eyes with a cold glare as she did.

“You know that’s not true.” Angela retorted, jumping to her feet. She couldn't believe Amélie was being like this, after everything she dad been through. She sighed and tried to relax. After everything the woman had been through Angela could completely understand why she was lashing out.

Amélie groaned and hung her head back against the pillows, looking up at the ceiling. “Well then let me go,” she demanded, balling her fists at her side.

“You haven’t been cleared yet, I’m sorry. You can't go.” Angela sighed and looked at the floor before looking back at Amélie. “But i can bring Gérard to you if you like?” she offered. She wasn’t entirely unreasonable, and if it would help convince Amélie of her intentions.

For a moment her patient seemed conflicted, torn between her anger and the kind offer and whatever other emotions were playing through her mind. She shook her head and sighed. “That’s not necessary. I just want to get away from this place.”

She looked around at the clinical clean walls and the strip lights in the ceiling that felt too bright to be allowed indoors. They seemed to burn through her retinas and right into her brain, make her skin seem pale and transparent. Once more Angela took in the dark shadows beneath those eyes, all the light drained out of them by whatever horrors Talon had put her through. Those people, those terrorists were monsters. It was bad enough they caused chaos in the streets, riots and bombings and attacks on valuable locations, but now they painted marks on the backs of innocents and used them for target practice. It made her sick.

She looked down at the floor and asked without looking at Amélie, “Does it remind you of where Talon kept you?” she didn't know anything about what Amélie had endured while she’d been held hostage, but she could just imagine Talon keeping her somewhere that looked like a medical room. A sick kind of psychological torture - take the place that should be the safest in the world and turn it into a living hell.

There was a silence between them while Amélie looked around the room. The whites hurt her eyes almost as much as she strip lights. “Yes. It’s too clinical.”

Amélie stayed sitting in the bed, frowning at the wall. She refused to look at the doctor, petulant as it might be. If this kind of rebellion would get her heard she would keep it up. She knew how to play Angela’s feelings as good as any musician. But the woman knew how to play on hers too.

“I can move you to one of the spare quarters if that would help?” Angela suggested, after rifling through some papers. She showed Amélie a form that just needed a few signatures and a reason.

Amélie nodded. “Please.”

“I’ll see to it.” Angela moved to a counter and leaned down to scribble her signature on the slip of paper, as well as a reason for her decision. “And I can get you a new doctor if you’d rather I wasn’t involved,” she added, not looking over as she chewed the end of her pen.

“That would probably be for the best,” Amélie agreed, watching as Angela nodded slowly and bit her bottom lip. “But... I don't want you to leave me,” she said, as Angela made to find another form to fill out for a change of medical staff.

Angela shook her head and walked to the bed, two papers in her hands, one filled out and the other still blank. “Amélie...”

“Can we go now?” she asked before Angela could say anything else. The woman was nothing if not argumentative when she thought she knew what was for the best. Granted, often she did, but now was not one of those times even though she might have thought it was. Instead she looked imploringly at her as she took the paper and pen to sign her own name on the first form. “I really want to be out of here.”

“Yes, of course,” Angela replied with a nod, moving around the room to gather up Amélie’s things into a small bag, ready for transfer to another room.


	3. Day Three

Gérard had been round to the hospital the last two days since Amélie had been in there, and yet he knew as much about what was going on as the rest of Overwatch. They met in the mess hall on a regular basis, but there had been more grim looks between them recently. Lena kicked her feet up on the table and leant back in her chair, only two legs on the floor, hands behind her head. “How is she?” she asked, directing her question to the man whose face was half hidden by a cowboy hat.

Jesse looked up and shrugged. “Who knows. Angie isn’t letting anyone see her yet. Not even Gérard.” 

“Man’s just got his wife back and he can’t even see her?” Strike Commander Morrison was glaring into his mug as he held it between his hands. He had made his disappointment in the way Angela was handling the situation clear from day one, but he couldn’t change her mind now it was made up. “Someone should talk to the good doctor.” He looked pointedly at Jesse across the table. His look was ignored.

“I reckon we just gotta accept her decisions. She’s the best.” Jesse shrugged again and tipped his hat back on his head a little. He was frowning though, as though he wasn’t best pleased with his friend’s decision either.

Lena sighed. “I just feel bad for Gérard.”

“We all do,” Jack replied, nodding and taking a sip of his coffee, “but he’s not the victim here.”

 

She awoke with a start, a scream in her throat and a hand on her arm. Her arms felt bound under the covers, like she was held back in the shackles Talon had put her in. So much of her mind still seemed to be trapped there. She struggled for a while until she was free of the blankets, then stopped, breathing heavily and looking up into blue eyes filled with worry. Angela watched her cautiously, “Amélie, you were having a nightmare.” She moved her hand from the woman’s arm to her shoulder, slowly easing her back into the covers. Amélie moved back gently, her head hitting the pillows and her eyes closing once again.

“I don’t remember it.” She lay there with her eyes closed, her hand shifting to cover Angela’s. They had spent a lot of their time sitting in silence, but it had never been right after Angela had walked into a room and found Amélie thrashing under her covers and screaming. It was a tense kind of silence that weighed on them, and Angela didn’t enjoy it. She would have assumed Amélie had fallen back asleep if it wasn’t for her breathing being too shallow for sleep. She seemed scared still.

After a few minutes, which truthfully felt much longer, Angela sat down on the bed beside Amélie and took her hand. “Can you talk to me about what happened?” Amélie looked up at her, eyes suddenly wide. There was a worry on her face that Angela only remembered seeing when Gérard had been on a mission that had gone radio silent. Only one time, yet here was that look of fear and uncharacteristic anxiety that Angela hated to see. “I know it’s hard,” she said, her voice as gentle as possible, “but can you tell me where you were?”

Amélie swallowed and sighed, her eyes never leaving Angela’s. So long as she could ground herself in the blond’s gaze she was safe, she was going to be fine. “In some kind of cell most of the time, white walls and… and a door with a barred window. It wasn’t locked.” she muttered, “They drugged me and took me to another room sometimes.”

“That’s good, you’re doing great,” Angela told her, squeezing her hand reassuringly. The eye contact was unnerving, at least when the topic was what had happened to Amélie at the hands of terrorists, but Angela didn’t look away.

“I don’t want to remember this Angela,” she whispered, shaking her head and looking away.

Angela nodded, but she pushed all the same,“Could you try to tell me what happened in the other room?” She knew there was a reason she wasn’t a therapist, why Amélie would have to be seeing someone else when she was ready and her physical health had been taken care of. But she was asking as a friend, not a psychologist.

Amélie sat up and coughed, and Angela realised she was choking back tears. She looked so haunted in this moment, as though she feared even thinking of that place would send her back there. “Angela, I can’t…”

“That’s okay,” Angela wrapped an arm around her patient’s shoulders and held her close “Don’t push yourself too hard.”

It took a while, but Amélie finally spoke again. “There was a machine.” Angela listened, shocked that more information was coming and worried if she moved even a little bit Amélie would realise she was speaking out loud and stop. “And lights. They kept talking, I couldn’t hear the words though.” A few tears fell from her lashes. “Angela I don’t want to go back there.” She clung to Angela’s arm, her grip tight.

“I’m not going to let you go back there,” Angela promised. She meant it, that would never happen to her friend while she was capable of stopping it. “You’re safe Amélie.”

“Angela…” She edged closer, put a hand on her doctor’s thigh. Angela watched her for a moment, her heart jumping as Amélie came closer.

She shook her head, looking away quickly. “We shouldn’t Amélie,” she said as she took the woman’s hand from her leg and put it on the covers between them. “We said it needed to stop.”

Amélie leaned over and kissed her cheek once, twice. “I don’t want it to stop.”


	4. Day Four

The door opened and Gérard looked up quickly. It was the fourth day he’d been standing outside the room his wife had been hidden away in. It wasn’t the medical room now, but it was the same principle. Angela had been consistent in her refusal, her reasons always the same. But today she was smiling, and Gérard dared to let his hopes rise. 

“Gérard,” Angela greeted him with a nod and eased the door further open, “she’ll see you now.”

Gérard rushed forwards, slowed at the doctor’s chastising look, and then headed inside the spare quarters where his wife had been moved.

The room was big and brightly lit by the sun that filtered through the window. The net curtains had been put up specifically to keep the glare out of Amélie’s eyes while she was using the room. She'd been experiencing some photo-sensitivity since she'd returned and until the nets were up she'd been forced to either keep her eyes closed or wear shades.

And there was his wife. She was sitting up in bed, the covers just over her legs and a book in her hands. She was quite a way through it, but dropped it when she saw him come in and beamed at him. “Mon dieu, Amélie!” He ignored Angela’s expression as he jogged to her, gathered her up in his arms and held her close. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t return his embrace, just put a hand on his shoulder and stared past him towards Angela who stood in the doorway. “I will be.”

They stayed together for a while, exchanging small talk and touching hands and arms while they discussed what the last few days had been for Gérard while Amélie had been locked away.

When Angela walked over to a desk she’d set up in the corner of the room with her office supplies and medical files, Gérard looked over to her and smiled. “Are you fit to come home?” He asked his question as though he was still talking to Amélie, his eyes flicking to hers for a moment, but he was really asking for Angela’s permission to take his wife back home where she belonged. Both women knew who was in control of what happened here.

Angela waited to hear what Amélie would say.

The woman sat still for a moment, beside her husband and across the room from her doctor who had dictated the last few days since she’d returned trying to make Amélie’s life resemble some amount of normality - helping her wake up surrounded by familiar noises, and a familiar face. She sighed and lay back against the cushions that she’d put behind her to support her back. “That depends on what Dr. Zeigler decides.”

Gérard looked up expectantly. “Well, Angela?”

Angela looked between them both, from Gérard’s hopeful expression to the bags under Amélie’s eyes. “I’d like to keep her for the night,” she watched as Gérard visibly seemed to deflate, his smile fading, “but tomorrow she should be free to leave. I’m sorry for making you wait but I have to be sure.”

Even though the smile he hitched onto his face was just for show Gérard still managed to keep his cool. He looked at his wife and kissed her on the temple gently before he settled back on the bed instead of just perching on the side. “I understand Angela, thank you for taking care of my wife.” He was ready to do his part now, to stay here with Amélie until it was time for him to leave her to her rest or until Angela kicked him out. Whichever came first.

“Gérard,” Amélie cooed, lacing her fingers through his, “you don’t need to stay with me. I already have Angela with me all day.” She smiled at the doctor, who smiled bay somewhat awkwardly. She didn’t want Gérard to feel like he was being pushed away in favor of her.

Before either of them could say any more Angela walked slowly towards the door. “I can leave you two alone for a moment if you like?” They both looked to her and smiled, Amélie slightly more subdued than Gérard.

“Thank you Angela,” he looked to his wife before Angela left the room, “Amélie, are you alright with that?”

Amélie laughed, the first time Angela had heard that sound in the whole time she’d been back. “Yes, merci doctor.”

 

Angela sighed and leaned with her back against the door. With her eyes closed she tried to clear her thoughts. Amélie was safe in there, she was fine. She was with her husband, who loved her, and that was where she was supposed to be. They had decided that.

“How’s it going Angie?” The voice was accompanied by the click of spurs as Jesse McCree came over to her, thumbs tucked into the front pockets of his trousers. He came to stand beside her, his back to the wall and his hat in his hand by his side. As usual he wore a cocky smile surrounded by a beard that wasn’t as full as it could be yet but might be sometime soon.

Angela smiled and rolled her eyes at the cigar he held unlit between his teeth. “Jesse, I didn’t know you were coming.” She was glad to see him though. It had been a few weeks since she’d been able to get involved in anything resembling a social life, between her duties as a medical professional and the ongoing search for Amélie.

“Amélie’s gettin’ out soon ain’t she, course I came by.” Jesse grinned and looked to Angela, a flicker of concern in his eyes, “She okay?”

Angela looked away from him, thinking for a moment. She wasn’t sure how Amélie was, not on the emotional level that had been bothering her since her return. Physically she was perfect, and that was what Angela was paid to look at. She nodded, “Yes. She’s in there with Gérard.”

Jesse moved to stand in front of her and put a finger against her cheek, turning her to look at him. “And you’re okay with that, right.” Angela looked stunned, opened her mouth a few times to speak but quickly closed it after each attempt. “Don’t play coy darlin’. I know what was going on between you two few months back.” He winked as if to emphasise his point.

Angela blushed a furious shade of red, closed her eyes and sighed. “I have to be okay with it Jesse. She’s in there with her husband and that’s how it should be.”

“Well then, while you’ve got a minute,” Jesse said, not missing a beat in their conversation, “Wanna come grab a bite to eat?”


	5. Day Five

“All set?”

Amélie looked around the room with a smile and nodded. “I think so.” She’d packed everything, all the few belongings that had been brought here while she’d been staying in the spare quarters and the medical suite. She looked around again and smoothed out the blouse she’d decided looked the least pathetic on her bony frame. She hadn’t eaten properly since being back, she couldn’t remember what she’d eaten when she’d been held by Talon for those few months.

Angela could hear the twinge in her voice as she spoke, the uncertainty that flooded her eyes as she looked around the world. “You sound nervous Amélie.” She walked over and  took her hands, reassuring her with a look.

“I am. I don’t want them to look at me differently.”

Amélie had spent the day fretting about not only her belongings, but the reactions of the other members of Overwatch, the ones who had been her friends months ago. She was scared of seeing them again, of them looking at her like she needed protecting and constant vigilance.

Angela led her over to the bed and sat down, pulling her gently down beside her. “They’re going to worry,” she said, “I won’t lie to you. They know you were missing for months, they know Talon had you. But they know you’re strong, and capable. And now you’re back they just want to know you’re okay.”

“I don’t want to be some weak vulnerable flower they need to keep out of direct sunlight. I’m not that little girl Angela.” She was getting frustrated, at herself, at Angela, at everything.

Angela didn’t say anything for a moment, just let go of one of Amélie’s hands and reached for the small silver necklace that hung between her collar bones like a loose choker. It was a locket, engraved with a fleur-de-lis, a lily. She’d worn it since Angela had met her, a gift from Gérard years ago. Her picture had been added to one of the four frames inside the old fashioned pendant. 

It was good to see her wearing it again. She remembered finding it in between the cobblestones when Amélie had gone missing, crying over it for a good while before getting herself together and calling someone at Overwatch. She dropped the pendant quickly and averted her eyes back to Amélie’s.

“I know that, you know that. Show them so they know it too.” Amélie nodded but didn’t seem convinced, glancing away. Angela moved to catch her eye and asked, “What is it, really?”

“Talon took me from the streets,” Amélie said, confiding something everyone knew but she had never said. Angela had known that her friend never arrived home that night, that she must have been taken sometime between when she’d seen her and that night. There had been hours between those times. “After you left, I started walking home alone and they… they just…”

Angela took her hand again as she trailed off, hanging her head. “Don’t force yourself to relive it Amélie, not if it’s too much.”

“No, I need to face what happened.” Amélie shook her head and took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she had to do, what she was about to say. “We argued, you left and they took me. I wanted to blame you Angela, so much. You’d left me and they’d been given a chance to do what they did and it was so much easier thinking it was your fault.” Amélie spoke slowly, carefully, her voice almost monotone as she tried to keep herself detached from the memories.

Angela hadn’t realised she was crying until she took a shaky breath and a tear fell onto the back of her hand.“I’m so sorry. I’ve thought about that night every day since it happened. I shouldn’t have left you.”

Amélie looked up, wiped a thumb beneath Angela’s eyes and then left her hand on her cheek. She had a way of looking so gently into Angela’s eyes the doctor could forget the situation. She’d always held some kind of sway over Angela’s thoughts. Probably why it had been so easy for them to fall into their bad habits. Amélie’s other hand went to her waist, tugging her a little closer. “I Wanted to blame you, but I couldn’t. I never should have given you reason to go.”

“Amélie, don’t start this.” Angela tried to distance herself, shuffling away a little towards the headboard of the bed. Amélie smiled sweetly, innocently. They were anything but innocent.

“Why not?” Amélie looked offended behind her smile. “I know how you felt that night.”

“Because I told you!”

“Are you telling me that’s changed?”

“No,” Angela thought for half a second, “Yes! You’re my patient, you’re married, you just got back from being held hostage by a terrorist organisation.” She ignored the flash of emotion in Amélie’s eyes at that, prepared to go on a rant about how what they’d been doing, what Amélie was talking about, was wrong. It had always been wrong. They had always known it. But it had been exciting and dangerous and Angela loved that about being Amélie, would have loved it even without loving the woman herself. But she did love her, so much. 

She sighed softly to herself. They were still in the wrong.

Amélie moved closer, pushing Angela up against the wooden headboard and grinning the same grin Angela had come to love. It was trouble and lust all hidden in a flash of perfect teeth. “Did that change how you feel about me?”

“Amélie, I…”

She stopped, lips on hers, warm breath against her cheek. For a moment she felt herself relaxing, her fists unclenching at her sides. And then reality crashed back to her, accompanied by shock and mild disgust. At herself, never at Amélie. 

She stood up quickly, surprising the other woman and pushing her back slightly. “Gérard will be here soon, you should get ready to leave.” 

She refused to make anymore eye contact, even as Amélie walked out the door with her husband and without a word.


	6. Day Six

Angela frowned down at the paper on her clipboard. She’d been staring at it for half an hour now at least. 

She checked her watch. 

More like three quarters of an hour. 

She didn’t like just sitting here reading the same report over and over again, but here she was doing just that. It was important. The list of names glared up at her angrily when she put it down for even a second, so she continued to read. The names of agents were cemented in her mind, their blood types, their place in combat.

She knew the ones she’d be least likely to see here in her medical clinic in a few days - Ana Amari as a sniper had hardly ever come in for treatment. But those front line soldiers like Jack and Gérard she’d seen in here many times before. Normally their injuries were mild and easily treatable, but sometimes they’d been worse. She’d hardly lost any soldier’s in years though, she prided herself on that.

The door to her room opened and closed with a faint hiss. She looked up, surprised to see Amélie standing with her back to the door and her eyes closed. She looked relieved. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here Amélie,” Angela said as she returned her attention to the papers on her clipboard.

“I had Jesse walk me,” Amélie replied, shrugging. She was trying to look nonchalant, trying too hard that even distracted, Angela could tell. At Angela’s raised eyebrows she sighed and slumped back against the door. She looked like she could use a seat. “I can’t… I don’t want to be alone. But I don’t want to be with Gérard.”

“That explains why he was in on time. Did he tell you about his mission? I just got a roster of the next agents on a mission.”

Amélie looked up quickly, worried. “You’re going too?” Her tone was accusing.

Angela smiled reassuringly and rose from her desk, dropping the clipboard down and ignoring it in favour of her friend. “No, I just need to know who might come back early with any injury- I’m sorry.” She mentally scolded herself for being so stupid. She shouldn’t have said that. The last thing Amélie needed to think about was her husband or her friends being injured out on their mission. She leaned behind her to drop a file over the clipboard, hiding the names on there

“It’s fine, I just…” Amélie walked over and sat on the edge of the desk beside the doctor, “I don’t want to be alone Angela. I can’t be alone.”

Angela rested her hand over Amélie’s squeezing her fingers and looking to her quickly. “You won’t be.” She took a card from her desk, crossed out  _ Dr. Ziegler _ and scribbled above it so that card now read  _ Angela _ and slipped it into the breast pocket of Amélie’s shirt. Possibly one she had borrowed from Gérard. It stung, but Angela suppressed her jealousy, she’d gotten good at that. It was a familiar smell, a feeling that connected her to home, made her feel safe. She smiled and moved to sand in front of Amélie, hands on her shoulders.“I’m here whenever you need me.”

Amélie nodded, leaned into her doctor and wrapped her arms around herself. “I need you now.”

“Then I’m here,” Angela just held her. “I promise, I’ll never abandon you.”


	7. Day Seven

Amélie decided to start visiting her daily, once in the morning and again in the evening, when Angela was the least busy and when she could have someone walk her from point A to point B. It was an arrangement that worked well for everyone, Especially Amélie who appreciated not having to be alone. She stayed with Angela for hours the day before, keep herself busy helping with filing and organising, or watering the plants Angela had been neglecting.

“So how have you been feeling?” Angela asked as she walked in, first thing in the morning. She’d been in her office about half an hour when the woman turned up, already busy reading a new report, only looking up when the door hissed open.

Amélie shrugged and took the seat on the other side of the desk, picking the pen out of Angela’s hand so she wasn’t tempted to start writing in the middle of a conversation. She could be a hard friend to have sometimes, and that was all she was in these early morning meetings.“Not too bad,” she told her, shrugging and tapping the pen against the edge of the desk, “If we ignore that my husband is leaving me late tonight and I’ll be in that house by myself.”

Angela looked up from the report she’d been scanning quickly, brow furrowed. “He’s going so soon?” she asked, disbelief clear in her face.

“Oui.”

“I’m sorry.”

Amélie sighed and shook her head, looking down at her knees instead of the doctor. “It’s not your fault.” She didn't look back up until she head the scrape of Angela’s chair moving back and footsteps as she came to stand between her patient and desk.

“If you needed to you could…” Angela stopped, thinking whether she should continue to make her offer. She sighed, not having much to lose and determined to be the best friend she could while Amélie needed her. “You could stay with me. While he’s gone I mean.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea?”

Angela didn’t want to think about what she was implying, so she pretended the thought hadn’t crossed her mind either. Both of them, alone for a good period of time… it would be so easy to do the wrong thing while she was trying to do the right thing. So she left Amélie at her desk and moved into a storage room, flipping through files in a cabinet as she replied over her shoulder, “Yes. You won’t be alone and I’ll be able to keep an eye on you in case there is anything wrong.”

“I don’t mean that,” Amélie told her, standing up and following behind her. “I mean…” she pulled the door closed behind her, leaving it open enough that the room wasn’t claustrophobic. “I keep thinking about what you told me that night.”

Angela shook her head and refused to look away from the files. “Amélie, don’t go there.”

“I want to,” the woman told her, wrapping her arms around her waist, burying her nose against her neck. “I want you to go there with me.” Her voice was no more than a whisper as her lips ghosted over Angela’s skin.

“Amélie…”

Angela didn't stop her, but didn't react either, just stayed still and waited to see if Amélie would stop. She didn't, instead she carried on kissing her, brought a hand up to her breast and pressed herself against her. “What if Gérard comes in, what if anyone came in?”

“He’s picking me up after his meeting.” Amélie, took Angela’s hand and tugged her around to face her, pushing her back against the metal file cabinet and smiling. “Lock the door if you’re that worried.” Angela looked towards the door through the clouded glass window as Amélie returned to kissing her way up her neck, then along her jaw. She gave up trying to find an excuse to get back to her office as Amélie captured her lips.

“Ah- Amélie.” The woman pushed her back harder against the cabinet, tongue pushing between her lips. While one hand held her pinned the other traced the waistband of her trousers beneath her lab coat. Angela relented, pulling her closer and kissing her back, walking her back against the wall with the window, fingers tangling in her hair.

 

“Doctor?”

They jumped apart quickly, Angela looking down at her discarded lab coat and beginning to quickly fasten up the buttons to her trousers and then her blouse. Amélie snickered quietly, rolling her eyes and leaning back to watch as she casually redid her shirt. It smelled less like Gérard now and she approved.

Angela looked at herself in the reflection of the window, looked through it at the figure blurred on the other side as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail. Amélie ran her fingers through her hair, straightening it out a little from where Angela had messed it up.

It took them hardly any time at all to get themselves neatened up, but Angela worried it was too long. They were going to be found out, Gérard would report her, she’d lose his friendship and never see Amélie again. It’d ruin her reputation, and Amélie’s. But when she walked out of the room with a few files in her hands, ones she needed to go over that she’d originally gone into the room to collect, Gérard just smiled at her flustered expression and looked around for his wife. He made an offhand comment about Amélie keeping her busy, to which Angela just nodded and laughed weakly as she sat in her seat behind the desk.

Amélie came out of the room a little after her, smiling and walking straight to her husband. “Oh, Gérard!” she exclaimed as she hugged him and smiled up at him. He was a fair bit taller, even than Amélie who was on the taller side, “We must have lost track of time.”

They spoke for a while, talking about what Amélie had been up to in the day. She told him she’d just helped Angela work out a few issues she’d had, as well as dealing with a few tasks around the office so Angela could carry out her work in peace. Gérard thanked the doctor and then turned to his wife. “I’ve got us a reservation at an Italian restaurant Ana recommended. Are you ready to go, we could head off early and walk through the park.”

Amélie didn’t even have to think about her answer. “Yes, of course.” She grabbed her jacket and handbag from the back of a chair and nodded to her doctor. “Thank you Angela. Should I come by after if I’ll be keeping you company?”

Angela nodded, looking down at her work before they were even heading towards the door. She didn't want to watch Gérard help Amélie with her jacket, or watch him lead her to the door with his hand on her hip. “Yes, I’ll be here working.”

“Go easy on that Angela,” Gérard joked, laughing as he made to leave with his wife.

Angela hummed a laugh and glanced up as they left. “Have a good time you two.” The door closed and she sighed, moving back to the storage room to get her coat and drape it over the back of her chair. She needed to be more careful if she didn’t want that to happen again.


	8. Day Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! This is the halfway point!  
> I actually managed to keep updates going for a week, a record for me!  
> Anyway, thats all i had to say, enjoy the rest of the story :)

The door hissed open for the second time that day. Although it wasn't the same day anymore, Angela noticed as her eyes flickered to the clock on her desk. 

12:24. 

She looked up to see a very irritated looking Amélie walking towards her, eyes a little red. She didn't question it, just watched as the french woman sauntered towards her in a short black dress that looked perfect on her and clung in all the right places.

Or wrong places, the places Angela didn't want her eyes to be drawn to, didn't want to be imagining her hands on.

“It’s gone midnight Angela,” Amélie told her as she stopped at the desk, kicking the chair out with a heeled shoe and sitting gracefully down, “What are you still doing here?” Her brow was creased, her hands were shaking. Angela wondered if she’d walked back from the restaurant alone, but surely Gérard wouldn't have left her even if he’d had to rush out to get ready for his mission. He had to be gone by now.

Angela stopped working and put her pen into a stationary pot. “Waiting for you,” She replied, “Where have you been, the place shut at 11?”

Amélie raised an eyebrow, amused at how Angela had done her research into the place she was going to for dinner, but then she sighed and looked down. “Gérard dropped me off outside your apartment building, he assumed you’d be there by now.” She looked up, long lashes fluttering, “I hoped you’d be waiting for me there.”

“Amélie,” the doctor leant back in her seat and shook her head, “Earlier, I... That was a mistake.”

She closed her eyes and bit her lip as she listened to the clicking of Amélie’s heels on the tiled floor. She waited as the woman came closer, until the noise stopped and she could tell if she opened her eyes Amélie would be right in front of her. With a shuddering breath she forced herself to do just that, as the parisian leant down and put a hand on the back of her chair.

“Does this feel like a mistake to you?”

She kissed Angela gently, their lips barely brushing. But it still made the doctor draw back from her, sinking further into the leather back of her chair.

She nodded as Amélie pulled away. “Yes.”

Amélie held her eyes for a long while, her smile filled with the usual mischief. She moved towards Angela again, this time stopping beside her cheek, planting a light kiss there and whispering, “Do you want to make a mistake with me?”

It took Angela a while to answer.

“Yes. But not here.”

 

Angela’s apartment was nothing special, even though they both knew she had the money to afford much better even with her research being in the early stages of development. It could still be vastly improved, but already she was saving lives with her breakthrough cures. But Amélie loved it here, had so many good memories in this place. She remembered Christmas celebrations and a particularly good Valentines day spent here. Mostly in the kitchen and bedroom.

But she wasn’t here to reminisce, not with Angela’s lips against hers. 

The doctor broke away from a moment as Amélie started to fiddle with the buttons on her blouse without even thinking of taking her own dress off. “Amélie are you sure about this?” She asked, not stopping the buttons being undone, but not helping either. It made her feel less guilty if she was a somewhat passive participant for at least some of it.

“Yes.”

Amélie eased Angela back onto the bed, pushed Angela’s blouse from her shoulders and off over her arms. As she straddled her, she took Angela’s hand and guided it beneath her dress. The doctor kept her hand against her thigh for a while. 

Their kisses hadn't started slow and tentative, but with a passion that came from months of taking what they could get and nothing else. A confidence that came from learning each other in the shadows of abandoned rooms and dimmed apartments.

Stolen moments always boiled down to heat and lust but never -

“I love you, cherie.” Amélie sighed as Angela finally touched her, fingers slipping beneath the soft fabric of her underwear. She rocked against the doctor’s hand, gripping her shoulders. “Ma bel ange.” She whispered that to the room before hiding her face in Angela's shoulder, kissing her between small gasps until her body tensed. Angela kissed her cheek as Amélie slowly relaxed and then she lay back, leaving the woman kneeling over her.

Angela looked up at her, wiping her hand on the sheets beside them. Amélie was beautiful, almost perfect she could say, but definitely not hers. “Don’t say that,” she told her, her voice flat.

Amélie frowned. “Why not?”

“Because,” Angela reasoned, and when Amélie wouldn't accept such a childish reason she sighed and propped herself up on her elbows. “Because you’re married. And you don’t mean it.”

With a soft laugh Amélie leaned down over Angela, hands on the doctor’s cheeks. “Angela Ziegler, I love you.” She kissed her lips and then stood up so she could undo the button on Angela’s black trousers and pulled them off her legs. 

“Believe me, even just for today,” she told her, looking into her eyes from where she had kneeled on the floor. Angela watched her until her lips touched the inside of her thigh, then let her head fall back with a soft moan against the bed, eyes closed.


	9. Day Nine

“Can I be with you again tonight?”

Angela coughed on a mouthful of coffee, putting her mug down quickly and looked at the woman who sat across from her at the desk. “Amélie! You can't just say that, not here.” She looked around quickly to check no one was here, not her assistants or anyone else from Overwatch. She didn't want anyone to hear them discussing this.

The two of them had arrived together this morning, both looking tired but not exactly worse for wear. Angela was wearing a white sash around her neck beneath her lab coat, an addition to her outfit she would say was Amélie’s suggestion if it came up. Amélie had a blouse on, one of Angela's made low cut with the top buttons undone, and the doctor was glad she apparently wasn't as rough as Amélie could be. Or she was just more careful.

“Why not?” The woman asked, smirking at Angela's obvious annoyance, “The door’s closed,” she moved to the back of Angela's chair and started to massage her shoulders with a gentle caress, “We’re very alone.”

Angela sighed and closed her eyes, letting the back of her head fall against the rest of her chair. Amélie really was very good at this, her fingers finding all the right places in Angela’s shoulders to work out the knots her work had left her with. Days of sitting hunched over a desk at home as well as the office, and then carrying bits and pieces from one lab to another when she wasn’t sitting, had left her back muscles tight. She shook her head though as Amélie’s hands wandered lower than her shoulders, drifting over her collar bones and to her breasts.

“We can’t do anything here,” she told her, grabbing her hands and rubbing her thumb across the woman’s knuckles.

The woman clicked her tongue a few times, tutting as she circled the chair and put her hands right back where they had been. “Not even this?” She slipped a hand between the buttons on Angela’s blouse and toyed with the lace details on her bra. She kissed her cheek, then her lips, then leaned to kiss her body through the fabric.

“Amélie,” Angela muttered, watched the buttons of her blouse be undone, “please don’t make me turn you down.”

With a laugh Amélie finished with the buttons, starting to kiss her way down her stomach. When she reached the waistband of Angela’s skirt she stopped, eyes flicking up to meet the doctor’s. “Turning me down is up to you. I won’t make you do anything.” She ran her hands down Angela’s thighs, then under the hem of her skirt.

Angela shifted forwards in her seat at Amélie’s suggestion, but still protested. “Anyone could walk in.”

Amélie rolled her eyes, rose to her feet and walked to the door, slowly shedding her shirt as she went. Angela watched her with rapt attention. “There.” Amélie locked the door and turned back to Angela, hands on her hips and a smile curling her lips, “Now they won’t.”


	10. Day Ten

Amélie rushed into the room, didn’t stop until she reached Angela’s desk. When she did she rested her hands on the edge, looking down at them and breathing heavily. Her shoulders were shaking as though she might cry any minute.

Angela wasn’t even at her desk that morning, instead she was in one of the storage rooms and openly came in when she heard Amélie’s bag fall to the floor with a clatter of a hairspray bottle and makeup falling out onto the tiles. She moved to the woman’s side, arm around her shoulders and hoped she wouldn’t cry. She wasn’t good at handling people crying, especially people who always seemed so much stronger than she was. “Calm down,” she told her rubbing a hand up and down her back, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

It took Amélie a while to calm her breathing to a point where she could talk, and by them Angela had guided her into a seat and pulled a second up so they could sit on the same side of the desk. “Gérard is coming back early,” she told her, “He got injured on his mission.”

“I’d heard, but that’s good news Amélie.” Angela didn't know who she was trying to convince. It hadn’t been a serious incident, she knew Gérard was going to be fine and she was sure Amélie had been given a full report of his condition by someone, but she still wasn’t sure what she wanted. She wasn’t sure she wanted Gérard to come back at all.

She scolded herself for that thought, it wasn’t right to wish him gone, especially not while he was gone, away in a war zone. He could have been killed, he still could if he hadn't left the danger area yet. What if he did die on the way back and she had wished him gone, what if somehow the powers in the universe had heard her and acknowledged her, then it would have been all her fault.

“It is,” Amélie agreed, bringing Angela back to the present where Gérard was very much alive and very much an issue for her perfect world. Amélie’s voice sounded flat, like she didn’t believe what she had said, but she continued, “but it’s not. I’m not ready for him to come back, what I have to do when he does.”

She seemed too panicked to be sitting alone right now, so Angela didn't bother going to get her clipboard off the side, settling instead to just be a friend instead of a professional for the time being. Besides, she’d probably have to miss out a good deal of incriminating evidence if she was to write down what they spoke about, since she wasn't about to let anyone find out about this whole business with seeing a patient. 

“What do you have to do?” she asks, trying to ease Amélie into it as gently as she can, but not beating about the bush. 

“I have to end it.”

Angela nodded, and took her hand. “End what?”

There was a long moment of silence where Amélie didn't reply, looked like it was the last thing on earth she wanted to do. She just stared into the distance, at nothing, like she was hoping for guidance from one of the many pieces of medical equipment scattered around the room. “Amélie please,” Angela half pleaded, “I don’t want to see you upset but I can’t help if you don’t talk to me.”

Amélie took a deep breath, steadied herself, and suddenly her whole posture changed. While she had been hunched over, crying, for this whole time she managed to finally sit up. The crying stopped and she turns to Angela, one hand reaching forwards so she’s running her hand up and down the doctor’s arm. It was a very sudden shift in character, and for a moment Angela was worried that she had snapped, she had come into her office a broken woman and she would leave even worse, if she could leave at all in this state. 

But Amélie just picked the doctor’s hands up and and brought her knuckles to her lips as she replied between kisses, “I’ll have to end this, what we have. I don’t want to.”

“Schatzli,” Angela murmured, and pulled one hand away and brushed Amélie’s hair from her eyes that had fallen from her high ponytail, cupping her cheek and brushing the tears away from her eye with her thumb, “that’s not what’s important right now.”

“It is to me.” Amélie looked at her defiantly, as if daring Angela to question how important she was, and Angela was powerless. She had always been powerless in front of Amélie, ever since they first met, always awestruck by her. “You are important. You’ve been helping so much, I feel safe with you. Please don’t make me end it, I love you.”

Suddenly she was close to tears again, hand on Angela’s arm gripping tight against her lab coat.

“I won’t.” Angela pulls her in and holds her close, letting her sob into her shoulder. The doctor doesn't like feeling her shoulders shaking, and wraps her arms around them in hopes it will still her slightly. “It’s up to you what you’d like to do,” she told her, smoothing her hand over her hair in the hopes that it was comforting to some degree.

Amélie pulled away from her and stared at her with teary eyes, her cheeks streaked with mascara. Under normal circumstances Angela might have made a joke about waterproof makeup, but now is not the time.

“This.” She put a hand on Angela’s cheek and pulled her in for a kiss. Angela closes her eyes and resigns herself to the truth of their situation, not even trying to put it out of her mind for now. But with Amélie’s lips on hers it almost feels like everything is right and how it should be. 

A year and a half of sneaking around culminating in this… perfect wrongness. 


	11. Day Eleven

Gérard had returned in the night. Angela had been called from her home - and woken Amélie up during the conversation since she was still staying with her - and then had headed into the office and tended to his wounds. Amélie had been denied entry while he was seen to, barred on Angela’s orders. Together they had retreated to the doctor’s office, discussed the details of his treatment and fallen into their bad habits.

Angela hated herself as she watched Amélie fawning over her husband and his soon to be battle scars. She had her own scars, but none so impressive as the slash across her abs the man was soon to have. 

“How are you feeling?” Amélie asked, holding his hand and sitting on the edge of the hospital bed with him. Angela hated her right now too, hated how easy it seemed for her to keep up this lie even in front of Gérard, even when her hair was no longer perfect and her lipstick had been reapplied because Angela had ruined it only half an hour ago. Angela on the other hand felt like one of those dogs with confessions of their sins, like she had a plaque around her neck telling the world what she had done.

“I’m fine, stop worrying.” Gérard reached over as he took his wife’s hand, kissing her knuckles, and Angela saw fit to wash her own hands at the small sterile sink in the room.

She felt dirty.

Gérard was still talking behind her, but she refused to turn around. “The doctors got me all patched up. I’ll be out tomorrow if Angela’s magic potion works its charm.”

“It’s science, not magic.” Even with her back turned Angela could see the smirk on Amélie’s lips as she spoke and it brought butterflies to her stomach. She could almost imagine turning around and seeing her standing there, just the two of them in the room.

But then Gérard spoke again and the illusion was ruined. “You sound just like her mon fleur.”

It was high praise Angela hoped as she quickly excused herself, patting the back of Gérard’s hand and letting Amélie stop her for a kiss on the cheek. She refused to look at her, staring instead at the tiles on the ground.

“I’ve spent the last few days with her.” Angela stopped dead in the open doorway, dreading what Amélie was about to say next. “While you were gone I didn’t want to be alone.”

She sighed, let herself relax, and exited the room, leaving the married couple alone to themselves. Why was she like this, why had she decided to get involved with a married woman. She couldn't have just said yes when Fareeha asked her on a date in a few days, no she had to do this her own stupid way and help Amélie lie to her husband about hating Valentine’s Day just so they could spend the day together. 

She wanted to hit something.

As she headed away down the corridor she sighed. She knew where the shooting range was, so at least she had somewhere to go.

 

She was sitting at a table for two at what was possibly the fanciest restaurant in the entire city. There was a bottle of wine beside her, a half filled glass of it in front of her, and her food was on the way. “Is this a date, Amélie?” she asked, looking to the woman who had been holding her hand across the table for the last five minutes.

Amélie shrugged. “Do you want it to be? It is if you want it to be.” she was smiling, her eyes sparkling with mischief, or maybe it was just the reflection from the candles on their table. 

For a while Angela was silent, picking up one of the several rose petals scattered over the tablecloth and flipping it in her fingers. “I wouldn’t mind. Does Gérard know we’re here?”

“He suggested I take you out tonight, I told him I wanted to.”

Angela raised her eyebrows at her, surprised. Did this mean Gérard knew what had happened between them, because if he did that was perfect, he must know and be okay with it and all Angela would have to do would be apologise to him for the secrecy but then she could go on as she was? In love with his wife but this time with him knowing and everyone being on the same page. “You told him what happened between us?” she asked hopefully.

“Past tense?” Amélie asked, glass half way to her lips, looking up with worry in her eyes.

Angela shook her head and smiled, “What’s happening. Present tense.”

Amélie seemed happier at that, but didn't answer for a while as she took a few sips of her wine. Honestly Angela preferred rose, but since Amélie was paying for this entire meal she had told her to pick what wine they drank, and not just pick a whine that the doctor liked. 

“Non.” Amélie’s response had Angela crestfallen, but she shouldn't have let her hopes get up so high. Honestly, what were the chances that Gérard would be okay with it even if they did tell him, Angela had been sleeping with his wife behind his hack for the better part of a year, seeing her on and off for almost two. “It’s not relevant anyway,” Amélie added like it was nothing.

“It isn’t?” Angela asked, forcing herself not to take it personally. Amélie was married, of course her relationship with Gérard meant more to her, she was a fool to think otherwise.

Amélie looked over, saw the conflicting emotions written on her face and sighed, smiling, and stood up from her seat. “Not to him.” She kissed Angela on the lips as she went by, discreet enough for it to have been a kiss shared between close friends but long enough Angela knew it to be more than that. She sighed as Amélie headed off towards the ladies’ bathrooms, smiling sheepishly into the next few sips of her wine, guilt forgotten.


	12. Day Twelve

Gérard had rushed into her office this morning, red and flustered and still limping a little from the sprained ankle he’d sustained while on his mission, looking determined to get some answers. He came to the desk, stopped and leaned against it while he caught his breath. Angela assumed he’d ran the whole way here from his and Amélie’s apartment. 

“Is something wrong with Amélie?” he demanded to know.

Angela took a deep breath, steadying her hands that had began to shake the second the doors had opened to reveal Monsieur Lacroix instead of Madame Lacroix.  _ He doesn't know anything, _ she told herself,  _ Amélie wouldn't have said anything. _

“What?” she asked curiously, but a little incredulously. He didn't look angry, he looked worried, and that was okay with Angela. So long as he didn't know their secret everything was okay. Just being this close to him made her feel sick though.

“Amélie,” Gérard told her as though he thought she didn't know exactly why he’d be here, “She’s been distant, avoiding me. It’s like she doesn’t want to be around me.”

Angela put her head in her hands for a moment, them looked up smiling. “You came all the way here when you could’ve just asked her yourself?” Maybe there was a reason Amélie wasn't acting like her usual self, and maybe if Gérard had just asked hr she would have been able to explain it to him herself. Although Angela wasn't sure how much she wanted Gérard to know about her thoughts on why Amélie wasn't behaving normally.

After a while of letting him stand there she shrugged and sat back in her seat as she blew a few strands of hair from her face. “Well I don’t know what to tell you.” She would be as honest as she could with him, without ruining his relationship with Amélie. “She’s recovering from a traumatic experience. Right now she needs to find her comfort in whatever she can.”

“I know,” he told her, waving his hand like he’d come here to hear something other than the same truth probably everyone else had been telling him, “but I’m her husband. Can’t she find comfort in me?”

The doctor stood up, moving around her desk so she could stand with Gérard. “It might be hard for you for now, but it’s harder for her.” She put a hand on his arm and tried her best to look sympathetic rather than guilty, “She went through an ordeal, we still don’t know what happened to her.”

Gérard inspected his feet while Angela comforted him. “We never will if she won’t talk to me. Or you.”

A pang of guilt shot through her at that. Amélie had been opening up to her, and while it hadn't been in confidence she still hadn't mentioned anything about it to him and wasn’t sure she wanted to. It was awful, but she almost felt relief following the guilt as she realised Amélie was talking to her more than Gérard. 

“She’s opening up slowly,” she told him, “but it’ll take time. You can’t rush her Gérard, as much as you might like to.”

Gérard looked at her for a moment, jaw set as he gritted his teeth. But in the end he just nods and leaves wordlessly. Angela watches him go, realising how stiffly she’d been standing only when the door closes behind him.


	13. Day Thirteen

The door hissed open and Angela was almost knocked off her feet as the woman collided with her back and clung to her. The papers she’d been holding clattered to the floor, still safely attached to the clipboard. For a second she said nothing, did nothing, just let Amélie cry into her shoulder, a hand up over hers.

When she turned, holding Amélie in place gently by her arms, she noticed the scrape on her cheekbone, just under her eye and the bruising beginning to show around it. It seemed like it had been bleeding on the walk over to her office maybe, but Angela was more surprised that anyone hadn't noticed, or if they had they had let her walk through here without stopping her and escorting her to the doctor.

“What happened to you?” she asked as she took Amélie by her hands and moved her over to the chair behind her desk. Amélie was numb, she didn't speak, she didn't even look at Angela for a long while, not until she was safely seated in the chair and Angela let her go to go wash her hands and fetch some water.

When she came back Amélie was telling her in broken sentences what had happened. “Gérard he… I told him what,” she took a deep breath and shakily let it go, “What happened between us. He’s been so good I had to tell him I couldn’t…”

She reached up to rub her eyes, wiping the tears from them before they had a chance to fall again. Her face was already tear stained, her mascara running down her cheeks. She looked a mess and still Angela couldn't help her heart skipping a beat when Amélie locked eyes with her. Instead of consoling her over revealing their affair to Gérard and the apparent consequences she just dipped a cloth into the water.

“Come here, you’re bleeding,” she told her, bringing the cloth to the wound on her face and dabbing at it. The cloth turned a slightly pink colour where it cleaned away the fresh beads of blood from Amélie’s rubbing over it. She pressed her again as she cleaned up the cut, trying to get to the bottom of what happened.

“It’s nothing. I fell,” Amélie kept insisting, pushing Angela way eventually and just holding her head in her hands.

They stayed in silence for a while, Angela perching herself on the edge of her desk and crossing her arms. She scowled into the distance, suddenly a bad taste in her mouth. “We shouldn’t have got involved,” she announced to the room, not looking at Amélie as she said it. There were some things she hadn't been able to bring herself to say to the woman, and this was one of them.

Amélie looked up quickly, eyes wide and filled with tears, for Angela or her husband the doctor couldn't tell. “But I love you Angela,” Amélie told her hurriedly, reaching up and putting her hands on Angela’s knees, “I love  _ you _ .”

“Amélie, please stop.” She brushed the woman’s hands away, regretting it even as she did but she couldn't keep doing this. They couldn't have kept sneaking around while Gérard was in the dark but now he knew they had to stop seeing each other. For now Amélie just needed to focus on keeping this together. It wouldn't be enough though, not if Gérard had done something to her, if he’d hurt her. “Tell me if he did this and I’ll say something,” she promised, forcing herself to meet Amélie’s eyes even as they filled with tears.

“Yes,” Amélie scoffed, “The woman I’m having an affair with saying my husband hurt me. And you’re my doctor, do you know what would happen if anyone found out?”

Angela did know what would happen. What she had been doing with Amélie was a breach of her code of conduct, she’d have her medical license revoked, Amélie and Gérard could probably press charges and she had no doubt in his anger that Gérard would. It would be a disaster if anyone outside the small group of people who knew was to find out.

Amélie seemed much calmer though now. She sighed and stood up, putting her hands on Angela’s shoulders and making sure to meet her eyes. “Angela I told you,” she said slowly, trying to reassure that somewhat panicked doctor, “I just fell, he pushed me away and I just…” She sighed again, looking away and shaking her head. She didn't need to go into all the details of tripping over her own feet and hitting her head on the coffee table. And she didn't need Angela to be blaming Gérard for her injury, he had rushed to her aid as soon as he’d realised what had happened. He might have been angry, but he wasn't a monster. 

“Can I stay here for a bit?” she asked quickly, just as Angela was about to open her mouth and speak. 

Angela nodded,“Of course,” she didn't want to send Amélie home in this condition. If she really had just fallen and gotten hurt then someone should keep an eye on her to make sure there was no concussion or anything like that. “You can always stay with me.”

They waited together in silence for a moment longer. Amélie was standing much closer now, maybe she had edged forwards while they’d been talking. 

“Angela. Kiss me.”

“Amélie,” Angela whispered, even as she let their fingers lace together between them, “We shouldn’t.”

Amélie pushed against her, trapping their hands as she wrapped her arm behind her. The doctor blushed as Amélie’s hair tickled her cheek, as her lips brushed along her jaw. 

“Please, Ange?”


	14. Day Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentines Day!

“Amélie?” Gérard shouted through from the bedroom, “Come to bed.” He had forgiven her, he had and he knew it in his heart that it must have been his fault. He had been selfish, he had gone away when he could have refused even if he was reprimanded, even if he lost his job he should have stayed with his wife.

She’d been kidnapped and abused by terrorists, the people he set out to destroy not a few days ago, who had sent him home in an emergency evacuation. They had her a few weeks ago and he had left her alone again.

He should have stayed.

And of course it was Angela’s fault too. The nerve of that woman, she was Amélie’s doctor. It went against every code of conduct. It was only for Amélie that he didn't report her, even though Angela didn't deserve protection. While Gérard wouldn't trust them together again, would walk his wife - His Wife - to and from her appointments, Angela was the best in her field, in medicines, and while she wasn’t the best in any sort of psychological field she was Amélie’s friend. And that was what she needed.

Amélie’s voice came from the living room of their apartment. “I’m thinking, Gérard.” He sighed and rolled his eyes, swinging his legs out of bed and padding naked through the hallway towards her, “I’m not tired,” she added as he walked through the door.

“Think in bed.” He’d come to stand beside her now, leaning on the arm of the chair she was huddled into, “Come on.” He reached out and tugged at her sleeve, wondering if she planned to sleep in the jumper as well as sulk in it.

“I told you I’m not tired.” She tugged her arm away from him quickly, still staring at the same blank spot on the wall, or maybe she was staring at the TV he wasn't sure.

“Alright, just… come to bed soon okay?”

“I will,” she promised, accepting his kiss on her cheek. “Soon.” Gérard walked away wondering if she’d only stared at the wall because she couldn't bear to look at him, if being with Angela the way she had been meant she wasn't interested in him anymore, or in men at all. He wasn't sure which would be the easiest to deal with.

He punched the pillow as he settled back into bed. That damn woman had got into her head and caused all this. He’d have words with her in the morning, but for now he would just have to try and sleep.

 

Angela knocked on the door. She hadn't wanted to come over, but there had been something in Amélie’s voice that forced her into action. Some tremble of fear that Angela couldn't work out. She had gone back with Gérard, they had made up after their fight. 

Angela shouldn't be here. Not today of all days. She didn't deserve to steal another Valentine’s day evening from Gérard and his wife.

But she knocked again, harder this time. 

The door clicked open, left only on the catch and not locked even at this late hour.

“Hallo?” she called through, pushing the door slowly open. The front hallway light wasn't on as she walked in, but there was a lamp on in the living room so she could at least see where she was putting her feet as she walked further into the apartment. 

Part of her expected Gérard to grab her and throw her out, she’d deserve it well enough after all. “Amélie, are you there?” She heard a strangled noise from the living room, muffled. Walking in she saw Amélie, sitting with her back to the wall in the far corner of the room, her knees up against a pillow that she was holding in front of her face. Only her eyes were visible, streaming with tears.

“Amélie!” The woman hardly reacted as Angela rushed to her side, kneeling beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders, just stared at something Angela couldn't see. Angela cradled her in her arms, rubbing a hand up and down her arm and planting soft kisses over her hair as she tried to calm her down. Nothing helped. “What happened.”

Amélie pointed to the opposite side of the room and Angela followed her direction. 

The man Angela had been so wary of way laying face down on the stained carpet. “God, Gérard.” She left Amélie’s side tentatively, checking that she wasn't hurting her by going, and moved to his body instead, checking uselessly for a pulse even though she knew she wouldn't find one. The steel knife in his throat made sure of that.

She sat there, beside the corpse of the man who had hurt her lover, who had kept them apart, and she had wondered what she would have felt if something had happened to him while he’d been away. 

She felt sick again.

She turned back to Amélie, wondering what she could possibly say to her. She barely said anything before she realised the woman wasn't there.

“Adieu, mon bel ange.”

She looked to the doorway where Amélie was standing, her eyes, once unfocused, now clear and sharp. There was something in the way she held herself, something in the detached way she regarded the doctor, her lover, her friend. Angela wanted to rush to her but found herself pinned in place by that steely gaze.

She watched as the woman turned on her heel and left through the open door, closing it behind her.

At the click of the lock Angela found herself running to the door on shaking legs and falling against the wood. “Amélie!” she shouted after her, knowing there was no way she would hear through the door. “Amélie!”

She could hear herself crying before she was aware it was her making that awful noise. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, lemme know if you enjoyed it or if I made any mistakes cos I usually do :)


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